Arthur O Sulzberger, former publisher of the New York Times, who has died aged 86. Photograph: Burk Uzzle/NYT/AP

Arthur Ochs "Punch" Sulzberger, the former publisher and chairman of the New York times, whose death at 86 is getting head-of-state treatment (at least by the New York Times), was a very nice, old-fashioned and, within the confines of his peculiarly aristocratic upbringing, intelligent man.

What he was not is the pro-active, derring-do, man-on-a-mission leader and publisher that the instant reminiscences (most prepared well in advance) are painting him to be. In a way, he was much more interesting than that: he was a man who, by calculation, cultural understanding, and personal temperament, did not do much at all. He restrained himself.

The depictions of him as a modern activist CEO, when, in fact, he was not the CEO at all, probably have as much do with the lack of language to describe a leader in other positive terms. It hardly sounds laudable to say he was a remote, class-conscious, phlegmatic, slow-to-action, caretaker owner. Reading between the lines, this is, in fact, the virtue that both Max Frankel and Arthur Gelb, both long-time senior editors at the paper, describe in their op-ed tributes: a remarkable level of non-interference. He regularly attended the "page one" meetings of the paper he owned and said absolutely nothing. But both Frankel and Gelb attribute this to a calculated strategy, instead of a kind of splendid disengagement.

Once, in 1974, when I was a copy-boy at the New York Times I got caught on my way to work in a flash storm. By the time I arrived at the Times building on West 43rd Street, I was soaked to the skin – shivering and ridiculous-looking. Whereupon the elevator doors opened and an affable and smiling publisher, said, "Is it raining?"

As the Times prepared to go public in the late sixties, its rather peculiar management structure – a titular boss, and paid professionals who, in most matters, were not required to consult him – had to be rationalized. Many years later, one of the architects of the public offering, described for me how the Sulzberger family saw its mission and how lawyers adapted it into a structure.

The Sulzbergers were the British royal family. They represented the paper, its values and its future. They stood for something, rather than acted for something. The paper itself, its day to operations and decisions, were to be handled by professional newspapermen – arguably, among the best who have ever been. There was, certainly, a class point here: people of a certain breeding don't, well, work.

This was one of the justifications or rationalizations for the company's unusual share structure, wherein the family sold the majority of the company to the public, but maintained voting control: the family as above the fray, ultimate moral arbiters, and not management at all. (Later, this structure would become the tool of media managers everywhere who wanted to insure their own control.)

This was an approach that uniquely suited the most influential paper in America – almost a branch of government itself. But it was also an approach that acknowledged the peculiar history of family ownership in the newspaper business. In the three or four generations since the invention of linotype and the mass distribution of newspapers, many newspapers had fallen on hard times – not least because newspaper heirs turned out to be a special order of nincompoop.

This is not hard to explain. In their individual communities, newspaper heirs were invariably princelings, with all the arrogance, entitlement and insecurity that implies. When they actually tried to manage these complicated cultural and manufacturing operations, the results were disastrous.

The Times had elegantly avoided the clash of temperament and function. And then, the possibly inevitable, and potentially tragic, happened: someone named Sulzberger actually wanted a job.

Shortly after becoming chairman and publisher, in 1997, Punch Sulzberger's son, Arthur Sulzberger Jr, began to actually take control. Indeed, he seemed to want to be not just an aggressive top executive, but a media mogul, too. He was not just the top man, he let it be known, but the public face of the paper as well.

Arguably, more than the challenge of the internet itself, this was the major change in the circumstance of the modern New York Times: a family member was running the company. The Times was no longer an historic trust; it was a personal issue. The one thing his father had taken out of the equation was put back in: ego.

True, the formal structure under which his father had presided over the company, continued. There was a CEO and an executive editor who reported to the publisher/chairman. But, in fact, the publisher/chairman had become the CEO, too.

Some years ago, when the level of Arthur Jr's involvement in the operating aspects of the paper had become clear, I marveled, to one of the executives who had a hand in designing the monarchical structure in the 1960, how incredible it was that Arthur was, in effect, running the newsroom.

"The Newsroom!" Said this Timesman. "Even more incredibly, he's running the business side!"

With a long litany of scandals, management turmoil, bad business decisions, steep declines in almost every metrics, and now, existential questions about the nature of the paper's survival, no one would say Arthur Jr has run it well. And because he has managed the company with full control of the voting shares, there has been no one to call him on it.

In a way perhaps, no other role existed for him, noblesse oblige being out of fashion. But the real story about Punch Sulzberger, and the real sense of loss, is not for a man who brilliantly ran the paper, or introduced it into the modern age, or who protected journalism, but for a man who knew his place.